Too Much Bittering Hops!!

[OliH]

Hi All,

I have just done my second AG brew using the BIAB method. The recipe is below. problem is I put the full amount of bittering hops in! So 30g in 13l which was the correct weight hops for 23l.

The original recipe was for 23l and I reduced this to 13l

3kg Maris Otter
0.25kg Crystal

17g Challenger @ Start of boil 90 mins
7.5g 1st Gold. @ 80 mins

1/2 a pack SO4 yeast

Everything else went really well and the OG is 1.055 which is spot on for the recipe I'm following.

Will this be drinkable or is it going to be too bitter?

Thanks in advance. Oli

 

[MickDundee]

What’s the AA% of your hops?

 

[Brew_DD2]

It'll be drinkable. It'll be much more bitter, but not all is lost.

 

[OliH]

That was quick!
The challenger is 5% and the 1st Gold is 7.6%

 

[MickDundee]

5% isn’t a massive AA% so you might just get away with it. If you have a bottle and it’s too bitter, leave it a month and try again.

If you’d doubled up your citra or something it would have been more of an issue

 

[Brew_DD2]

That was quick!
The challenger is 5% and the 1st Gold is 7.6%

I'm sure it'll turn out delicious. It might be a total revelation.

 

[OliH]

Thanks Mick.

TBH I tried the wort and it was fine, definitely bitter, but I do quite like that.

Only put it in the FV at 3pm and the airlock has just bubbled, hopefully a good start!

 

[An Ankoù]

If you're bottling, keep it a while. It'll settle out nicely.

 

[Brew_DD2]

Thanks Mick.

TBH I tried the wort and it was fine, definitely bitter, but I do quite like that.

Only put it in the FV at 3pm and the airlock has just bubbled, hopefully a good start!

That's a nice quick start to fermentation. I think wort tastes rank and super bitter! So if your wort tastes ok, then you should be fine.

 

[Zephyr259]

What are you brewing? Looks like a bitter? I ran those figures and you should have 28 IBUs which is fine, the part I don't get is that when I scale up to 23L with those hop additions I only get 16 IBU which is very little.

 

[Horners]

What are you brewing? Looks like a bitter? I ran those figures and you should have 28 IBUs which is fine, the part I don't get is that when I scale up to 23L with those hop additions I only get 16 IBU which is very little.

Is it possible that the original recipe assumed a higher AA for the challenger. For example Brew UK's 2018 crop are 7.7% and the default on BF is 8.5%. If you substitute in a higher AA you get something more in the ballpark?

 

[Zephyr259]

Is it possible that the original recipe assumed a higher AA for the challenger. For example Brew UK's 2018 crop are 7.7% and the default on BF is 8.5%. If you substitute in a higher AA you get something more in the ballpark?

Good thinking, 5% is pretty low for Challenger, at 8.5% it bumps the 23L batch to 22 IBU which is more reasonable for an easy going ale.

 

[OliH]

Hi Thanks for your replies. This is interesting, the recipe is from the "ultimate home-brew book" which I was bought for Christmas years ago. This particular recipe comes from the British beer section and is called "India Pale Ale". Thing is there seem to be a lot of mistakes regarding SG, this particular recipe states an OG of 1.055 and an FG of 1.041 but an ABV of 5%, none of which makes sense.

My brew has reached 1.014 in 3 days and I had a taste. It is absolutely fine, not too bitter at all, I think it will end up being a very traditional strong (ish) Ale. Not like the modern IPA's. I think fermentation has virtually stopped, but I'll give it the rest of the week and maybe transfer to a secondary.

Does anyone use a secondary fermenter? What are the advantages?

I was going to set up a secondary with a tap and and little bottler, then that is all ready for bottling day and I can get another brew going in the primary.

I'm also going to look into either dry hopping or adding a hop tea when I prime to try and give it some character!

 

[An Ankoù]

These days, I'm not obsessive about bringing trub and bits of hop pellets over from the boiler into the FV. I use a bazooka filter or a home-made hop strainer. It's even worse when I do a stove top-brew. I get the perforated pan of a large veg steamer, put my grain bag in it and pour the beer through that into the FV and then give the bag a good squeeze to get all the juice out.
So yes, I use a secondary fermenter. When the dust has settled and the first crop of yeast has dropped on top of it, I take my beer off all the crud into a nice clean fermenter where I'll also dry hop. The deposit, this time is mainly yeast and, if I was inclined to reuse the yeast cake, this is what I would use. It's this fermenter that I would allow to warm up a few degrees, too, to provide a diacetyl rest.
I think it's important that the beer still has a few degrees of gravity left to ferment out otherwise you're just moving it into a conditioning vessel, which isn't appropriate for a good many beers, and you really need the fermentation to produce enough carbon dioxide to push the head-space oxygen out of the airlock.
On the other hand, if, you've got clean beer with little trub and hot and cold break material then there's really little point. But for me that wastes too much beer. I like to get the last drop. Tried whirlpooling a couple of times but, again, it seems to waste a lot of beer.

 

[OliH]

What are you brewing? Looks like a bitter? I ran those figures and you should have 28 IBUs which is fine, the part I don't get is that when I scale up to 23L with those hop additions I only get 16 IBU which is very little.

How do you calculate this? I put the recipe into Brewers Friend and it has come out with IBU of 38.11, that's for 30g Challenger and 8g 1st Gold in 13l of wort. TBH I don't know if I'm using BF correctly but it seems pretty self explanatory.
What is considered a high IBU? Is there a chart for typical beers?

 

[GerritT]

Hi Thanks for your replies. This is interesting, the recipe is from the "ultimate home-brew book" which I was bought for Christmas years ago. This particular recipe comes from the British beer section and is called "India Pale Ale". Thing is there seem to be a lot of mistakes regarding SG, this particular recipe states an OG of 1.055 and an FG of 1.041 but an ABV of 5%, none of which makes sense.

My brew has reached 1.014 in 3 days and I had a taste. It is absolutely fine, not too bitter at all, I think it will end up being a very traditional strong (ish) Ale. Not like the modern IPA's. I think fermentation has virtually stopped, but I'll give it the rest of the week and maybe transfer to a secondary.

Does anyone use a secondary fermenter? What are the advantages?

I was going to set up a secondary with a tap and and little bottler, then that is all ready for bottling day and I can get another brew going in the primary.

I'm also going to look into either dry hopping or adding a hop tea when I prime to try and give it some character!

Hi.

Read this link: https://www.brewersfriend.com/2009/01/24/beer-styles-ibu-chart-graph-bitterness-range/

Read this too: http://beersmith.com/blog/2009/09/26/balancing-your-beer-with-the-bitterness-ratio/

Pros of secondary: it clears up the brew, leaving a lot of trub behind. Some brewers bottle from secondary (I do!).

@Dutto is the go-to girl for hop teas, and you have a book, that is good.

Welcome by the way! Make pictures, keep a log or something or take notes. Dry hopping is nice, I dryhopped a brew (and just transferred to secondary) of 9% ABV and 90 IBU, without dryhopping it would not be as grand as it's going to be!

 

[GerritT]

And yes: 90 IBU is high, up to 60 is okayish (depends on the recipe), above 100 it becomes noise.

Click: https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/64/201165/

and here: https://stoutsandporters.com/7-beers-highest-ibu/

 

[OliH]

Hi.

Read this link: https://www.brewersfriend.com/2009/01/24/beer-styles-ibu-chart-graph-bitterness-range/

Read this too: http://beersmith.com/blog/2009/09/26/balancing-your-beer-with-the-bitterness-ratio/

Pros of secondary: it clears up the brew, leaving a lot of trub behind. Some brewers bottle from secondary (I do!).

@Dutto is the go-to girl for hop teas, and you have a book, that is good.

Welcome by the way! Make pictures, keep a log or something or take notes. Dry hopping is nice, I dryhopped a brew (and just transferred to secondary) of 9% ABV and 90 IBU, without dryhopping it would not be as grand as it's going to be!

Thanks GerritT,

The bottling from secondary is exactly what I was thinking. I was going to have a secondary with a Tap and bottle from the tap with a spear. All I was worried about was adding priming sugar to the secondary and then having to stir and end up disturbing anything on the bottom, just before bottling.

Do you find this a problem or have you got a work around?

I also wondered if you could get a filter to fit on the tap inside the fermenter, do they exist?

 

[GerritT]

I prime per bottle, using sugar cubes (available in 2, 3 and 6 grams).
If you transfer by siphon you could tie a hop sock to the end of the tube, as in:

normal: primary => syphon => tube => secondary

with hop sock: primary => syphon => tube => hop sock => secondary